Rethinking the South English Legendaries

by Blurton, Heather; Wogan-Browne, Jocelyn

• ISBN13: 9780719084348
• ISBN10: 0719084342
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-12-01
• Publisher: MANCHESTER UNIVERSITY PRESS

Summary

Legendaries, or hagiographic manuscripts, have become increasingly well known in recent years through modern editions of individual texts and studies of particular manuscripts. Meanwhile, greatly increased interest in saints' lives in literary and historical scholarship and the cultural and post-disciplinary turn in literary studies provide a wealth of new approaches through which to view the South English Legendary. The present volume creates a fresh platform for thinking about this richly dynamic work: it draws on the new hagiographic scholarship, attends to textual, socio-cultural, political, and other issues, reprints a handful of earlier key articles now difficult to obtain, and includes a special section on performance. It will be of interest to all scholars of medieval literature: academics, teachers, graduate students, and undergraduates.

Author Biography

Heather Blurton is Associate Professor in English and Medieval Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara Jocelyn Wogan-Browne is Thomas F. X. and Theresa Mullarkey Chair in Literature at Fordham University, New York

Table of Contents

List of tables * List of figures * Acknowledgments * List of abbreviations * Introduction *  Introduction: rethinking the South English Legendaries

--Heather Blurton and Jocelyn Wogan-Browne * Part I. (Re-)situating the South English Legendary * The South English Legendaries --Thomas Liszka * The social context of vernacular writing in thirteenth-century England: theevidence of the manuscripts --John Frankis * The South English Legendary and its major Latin models --Sherry Reames * . Outspoken style in the South English Legendary and Robert of Gloucest --Oliver Pickerg * Part II.Manuscripts and Textual Cultures of the South English Legendaries * 'Lite bokes' and 'grete relikes': texts and their transmission in the South English Legendary --Chloe Morgan * Documents, poetry, and editorial practice: the case of ‘St. Egwin’ --Stephen M. Yeager
 * Modular dynamics in the South English Legendary --William Robins * Part III.Textual communities and the South English Legendaries * Forms of community in the South English Legendary --Catherine Sanok * Counting noses and assessing the numbers: native saints in the South English     Legend--Virginiaton * Locating saints’ lives and their communities --Jocelyn Wogan-Browne
 * Pope Gregory and St. Austin of Canterbury in the Early South English Legendary --Gordon Whatley * Part IV.Contexts and Discourses * Dangerous sympathies: political commentary in the South English Legendary
--Thomas J. Heffernan * 4. ‘His right hond he liet of-smite’: Judas/Quiriac and the representation of Jewish  identity in the South English Legendaries --Heather Blurton
 * Mapping identity in the South English Legendary --Sarah Breckenridge * Visualizing the South English Legendary: Bodleian Library, MS Tanner  1--7 Karen A. Winstea* Conversion, translation and Becket’s ‘heathen’ mother --Robert Mills
 * Bodies of belief: MS Bodley 779’s South English Legendary --Jocelyn Wogan-Browne
 * Part V. Performance * Black humour in the South English Legendary --Oliver Pickering *  Teaching the South English Legendaries at York: performativity and interdisciplinarity --Chloe Morgan, Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, Tim Ayers * Part VI. Afterword * Anne B. Thompson * Works Cited *  Manuscrip *  South English Legendary edition*  Other Published Primary Source*  SecondarWorks * Index